Testers [Define]

I had so many more images to put in here, testing the character in each environment with the HDRI lighting set up and the outdoor Daylight systems. However fortunate I am, my laptop is having severe graphical issues (around hand in date, isn't that nice!) and won't allow me to abuse my print screen button, and any rendering is taking a VERY long time. A simple still image is maybe 2 hours long - AT DRAFT. I can't afford to wait that long for test shots!

HDRI

Using a trusty Chrome Ball, and the HDRI lighting maps in 3ds Mac, lighting up the scenes seemed pretty easy. And after my 3D project, I grasped a knowledge on how to set up proper Daylight systems. Lighting each scene didn't take as long as I expected it to. Maybe just over a day to set them all up. Varying the angle, and intensity of other light sources depending on the scene set up. I wish I could have seen proper test renders compared to pre-pixel renders..

Thought Process

The Character sits in max, with the background scene, it renders out with a green background and comes into after effects with no background!

I'll have a build up video put up on Vimeo when my new laptop arrives and gets set up!

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Final Video: Friend or Foe! [Deliver]

[Done and Done! Uploading has had some issues. Because of the unstable Braodband after the line being fixed the connection keeps timing out. Please, Internet Gods. :( ]

I am so thankful that my new laptop came this evening, I needed it's power to get this stuff rendered and edited up for submission! All I need now is internet and it'll actually be a dream come true...

Without further ado, I present Friend of Foe! A Digital Composite piece based on The Binding of Isaac, set at Fort Lennon. Created entirely by myself. 

Friend or Foe - Fan Made Binding of Isaac Video

Enjoy! :)

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Post Production Composition [Define]

With the scenes being rendered from 3DS Max, what's next on the agenda? (Wordy post, inc.)

First off - 3DS MAX
Setting up the scenes in Max is simple enough, just render them with no environment map, in a .png format so they have no background. This allows them to be easily edited into After Effects and adding styles specific to the characters that make them that little more different from the backgrounds.

Made some good use of the different Cat Motion layers, using the absolute layer to grab the final scene of the never ending walk cycle and allowing me to further edit it using +L Layers. Rendering sets of frames at a time, then editing as I need to. Tedious, but it works.

Extra - Blink
A problem I didn't think of previously was How on earth I'm going to make the characters blink and change facial expressions and such. My initial thought was a sub-objects material type, however the material map for the character wouldn't map around the object the same way as a standard map for whatever reason. The back up plan was making the diffuse map in a standard texture a fall off, and changing the gradient to solid each time i wanted to see a change.

This meant that I could only animate between 2 textures at a time, and a lot of renedering.. 27 frames, then swapping the textures to do the next 70 frames was called for, but if it works it works. You do what you gotta do.

Next up - Overlay
In After Effects, a variety of things happen. First off, I had a noise video of 10 seconds long created using a generation from Sony Vegas Pro 10. I put this over the top of the 3D output and the background with dropped opacity and an Overlay mode. I didn't want the video to be crisp and defined, I wanted it to be darker, the noise adds to that.

The other two edits include a brightness adjustment layer. It doesn't add much to EVERY scene but it's good to have there to keep the scenes flowing and consistent. Or so I hope. The other is a solid layer, with inverted circle feathered heavy and lowered in the opacity region to add a darker border around the edge of every scene. 

And Then - Character Styles
Isaac + Adversary - Brightness + Contrast Layer that adjusts with keyframes according to scene lighting.

Plus, a Drop Shadow, and small Stroke effect to tie the characters with the style of the game a little more. The Drop Shadow helps them blend into their scene a little more.

Angel Gabriel - As an Angel (and.. Just generally being outdoors) Gabriel has a slight Brightness tweak and an Outer Glow, alongside the Drop Shadow and Stroke like the other two characters. Just to make him stand out and float away in all his holiness.

Other Assets
The Shadows are adjusted using After Effects, taking those from Max - where applicable - and using solid layers with various effects to add a shadow beneath each character where it's needed. Thankfully, there's no reflections in this composition.

The Adversary's laser is another added feature that consists of an advanced lighting generator ontop of a solid layer, adjusted with turbulence and a strike motion , adding a glow on a core for the right momentum. The start and end point of the path are adjusted and key framed to slowly burst from The Adversary when he attacks, and fades out when he's finished. With this comes a lighting adjustment for the 2 characters, a simple red solid with dropped opacity and proper positioning.

Angel Gabriel's halo is also a post-feature. Created using a simple ellipse as a 3D layer, and made all fancy with glowing effects. Parented to the 3D rendered layer so it moves as Gabriel does. Simple little things.

Final Composite
Premiere Pro is the program of choice, of course. Throwing the Scenes from After Effects in and basically lining it up with the anamatic. Some audio chopping had to happen. Certain scenes were taken out, and various SFX were unneeded or replaced. The simplest process, honestly...

Rendering the final video! New laptop is being tested..

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Character Creation [Define]

My favourite thing. Modelling and Texturing. It just makes me happy. It makes me forget all the GPU issues.. Well, I can try to.

Stage 1: Geometry


I scrapped the last base model and started from scratch. Creating Isaac first, starting with a cylinder and extruding out from there. Isaac was the easiest. No assets, no extra wiggly bits. Just all skin. Really.

Stage 2: Texturing


Unwrapping for each character was easy enough, done over the general points on the body (thighs, armpits, neck) and seamless textures were added into the maps using 'Multiply' to get the desired effect through bump mapping, and the diffuse in one go. I only did half, and sly cheated my way with the symmetry modifier to get the map on both halves of the character.

Stage 3: Rigging


Rigging is the one thing I can't do for the life of me. The Bones were fine, tilted at the right angles to allow for proper movements during animation. Skinning got me by the balls. Even after spending a little under 6 hours on each character, I couldn't fathom myself to paint anymore weights and just used the standard table. If anything lets me down with my 3D work, it's rigging. But practice makes perfect. It just means the bones can't stretch as far as I might need them to..


That's everyone set up, I'll do some lighting tests then we're ready to go.

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Anamatic Photos [Define]

Anamatic Breakdown, you can see the anamatic for my project here:

Friend or Foe - Anamatic

Scene Edits


I did some editing of the photos in photoshop, messing with levels and contrast, adding some slight inner shadows to the interior scenes, just to make them feel a bit more creepy. More testing how to put the same effects into the video with the 3D objects. I like how they look.

Draw ons


After some editing and adjusting all the chosen images for each scene, I decided to get an idea for the flow of animation and drew over the scenes to represent each character and how they were going to move. A simple scribble in photoshop made this a bloody useful task. Planning planning planning.

Typography Test

With some time spare, waiting for a render after some hardware problems. My laptop is slowly losing life.  I decided to do some poking for the actual game title font. I found it. And set about creating some simple titles. Some minor fixes and I'll pop these in the final video too. 

Recording SFX
The sound effects will be taken from the game itself. This had some potential issues. I wanted to rip the RAW sound files from the game, however the developers have it compressed into an unrecognizable file type - making it near impossible to crack open (something about not wanting to ruin the unlockable content of the game.)

So, I just used good old audacity to get the audio I needed to complete the video. Along side buying the Soundtrack. It's so good.

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Man the Fort [Define]

Heading to the Fort, which was an eventful day of its own! Poor Mark..

It was an interesting experience, the location was pretty much perfect for the story I had in mind. The storyboards I did were more based on the abandoned mill, but I could adapt what I needed to obtain on the fly which was good for this situation.



The whole idea for the Mill was that Isaac was visually tricked by the demon who posed as the angel. Leading Isaac into the basement for a Boss Fight. Thankfully, I could take the same concept and adjust it slightly to fit the Fort idea.

As I was at the Fort, I could see my characters coming to life in the different rooms and areas, and how they would interact to make their personalities come to life.

Many thanks Mark! 

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The Story +Resolve! [Define]

Now, I know my treatment and proposal give some idea about the theme I want to achieve and how I planned to achieve that, but I feel like a little blog post won't hurt. (This one is less visual and quite wordy!)

The Story
Isaac is the main character, and his goal through the game is to escape his mothers wrath and achieve holyness if the player so chooses.

Taking this concept into the composite, Isaac is creeping in a basement in search for his holyness. He is searching for Angel Gabriel to find forgiveness and stop his mothers rage. Isaac slowly moves through the basement to continue his search, and ends up meeting The Adversary - His Demon. The Adversary tries to kill Isaac for turning towards the angels and becoming 'corrupt'. Isaac has hold of a holy item, the Holy Mantle (An in game item) that allows him to beat the demon and progress. However, the manipulative demon offers Isaac some of his power by signing a deal with the devil. Isaac accepts.

And from a distance, the observing Angel Gabriel turns his back on little Isaac, refusing to accept such a corrupt spirit.

Theme
The video will fit the games theme. Creepy, dark and twisted. If I can find the right effects and tutorials, the blood effects will be included, and scenes will look haunted and scary. Run down and abandoned. A small innocent Child, completely bare and defenseless will explore the underground basement and choose the wrong path.

After Effects
To achieve this effects I need to do some research into various After Effects tutorials. The Adversary's laser attack needs to be done here, along with some noise and slight fog/mist effects on top of the scenes to grab that creepy lurker feeling. 

Some subtle candle lights for on top of various objects will be a neat touch. It all depends on if I can find the appropriate information to work with in After Effects!

Location Solved!
After a talk with Mark, the location issue is resolved! He has access to either one of two locations, an abandoned mill, or an abandoned fort that we can head to to get the photos needed for the scenes I need.

With a location settled, I don't feel as uneasy about how the project will turn out. I preferred the idea of the Mill, but the fort seemed to fit a lot more with the story  I planned initially. 

---

To the Fort we went.

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Isaac 3D [Define]

With my characters all sorted out, a big issue appeared. Staging.

I had no idea where I wanted to actually stage my piece. I started looking around Derry for some ideas, but none of them really fit the theme I wanted. I want to match the game, and it's dark and creepy nature. A sunny day on the outskirts of a city isn't really ideal!



They gave me ideas, of the Angel fighting off masses of game mob hordes trying to show how superior the side of light is to the dark but.. That's not the story I wanted to spread out here.

Other News

On the otherside, staging wasn't going to stop me at the first try of a 3D model for Isaac, the main character. The good thing I discovered is that I could use the Isaac model as a base for the other two characters. Less work, happy days.


Hopefully I can get some location inspiration soon...

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